New Digicam On The Way

I got fed with the bad behavior of my old Kodak digital camera ... for the last six months or more, it has produced terrible flash pictures (as if the shutter were staying open longer than it was supposed to) and only mediocre daylight pictures. So I took the plunge after reading many reviews over the course of several weeks, I chose the Pentax Optio 750. What an ugly camera on the outside (though it reminds me of a film camera). But it seems to have a great set of features for my needs: 7 Megapixel, 5X zoom lens, flip-out LCD, 17-foot range for the built-in flash with autofocus assist lamp, QuickTime movies. Of course I couldn't find a camera with all the features I wanted For example, I was hoping to get a camera with a feature that I had mentally invented years ago and was pleasantly surprised to see that it exists in some cameras: a positional sensor so that I wouldn't have to manually rotate "sideways" photos in iPhoto.

The only feature I'm really worried about with this camera will be speed. I hate pressing the shutter button, only to have the actual camera capture the image one second later, after the subjects are done saying "cheese" and have already started to turn away!

(By the way, this post has nothing to do with my earlier request for RAW photos, except that since this model doesn't support that format, I would need some examples of that format. Thanks to all who sent me their sample files!)